The present invention relates to a lighting device with a loudspeaker incorporated therein.
Hotels, business office buildings, public schools, etc. generally have emergency or fire exits that are indicated by lighted lamps. Such buildings also have a system of loudspeakers for announcing information to people in the building.
In an emergency, e.g. a fire, the lighted lamps are supposed to guide occupants to the emergency exits. However, they often fail to be as effective as expected due primarily to the smoke obscuring visibility and a possible power failure. One preferable solution would be to announce the location of the emergency exits through the system of loudspeakers. In this respect, it would be particularly advantageous if the oral announcement came from where the emergency exits are located since people could relatively easily reach the exits even in the dark simply by following the direction in which the announcement is heard.
Halls, restaurants, stores, and other public buildings for entertainment use have lighting devices mounted on ceilings and/or walls for lighting the interior of the rooms and also loudspeakers mounted on ceilings and/or walls chiefly for providing music to entertain customers. Modern interior design trends are such that the loudspeakers be kept as inconspicuous as possible to provide easier and better interior decoration and also to leave people unaware of the source of mood music.